Benjamin Jealous

Benjamin JealousCC '94 is president of the NAACP, and previously worked at Amnesty International as the director of the US Human Rights Program.

At Columbia, he majored in PoliSci. He received his first internship with the NAACP with help from Columbia College dean Jack Greenberg. On campus, Jealous led movements in support of homeless rights, full-need financial aid and need-blind admissions. A battle over environmental justice eventually led to his suspension from the university.

Jealous later obtained a masters in "comparative social research" from Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. He has won a John Jay Award, and it was announced on March 24, 2010 that he would be the Class Day Speaker for the Columbia College Class of 2010. Jealous?